Decision Time

[rryles]

Hi,

I've been interested in home automation since I was a kid, but have been renting for the decade since I flew the nest. However, I've finally bought my first house with my wife and we are building an extension and renovating the place. This is an ideal opportunity to install some home automation kit. So I need to make some decisions about what type of system to go for and could do with some input from you guys. In particular I need to decide on wiring schemes as this will have to be installed fairly soon.

I'll be putting plenty of Cat 5e in for various things. My main area of interest however is lighting control. I'd like to have all the house lights intelligently controlled. This means a Linux based PC controlling them, with custom software (I'm a software developer by trade). I'd like there to be the possibility of controlling the lights manually though if the PC dies.

As the whole house is being renovated I can run as many cables as I want so wireless is not a requirement. In fact I could "home run" all of the cabling and have a central dimmer rack next to the PC. Alternatively I can loop the lighting through the wall switches, including the neutral. Which do you think I should go for?

Of course I'd like the system to be cheap. Who doesn't? I don't see why it should have to be expensive. I don't need it to be wireless or to run over power lines. I can do a lot of DIY as I am competent with electronics and software. However my time is limited, and I do need to think of the day when we come to sell, which could be a problem with a non-standard design. I'm not keen on the latency/reliability of X10. I've looked at HomeEasy which is good for the price, but still worry slightly about reliability (what if multiple transmitters send at the same time). I would have thought that wired solutions should be cheaper, but CBus doesn't seem cheap.

IdraTek is interesting, and I think I once met the guy behind it! However, it is windows based and a closed protocol, which rules it out for me.

Your thoughts would be appreciated

[Otto-Mate]

I've been interested in home automation since I was a kid, but have been renting for the decade since I flew the nest. However, I've finally bought my first house with my wife and we are building an extension and renovating the place. This is an ideal opportunity to install some home automation kit.

Welcome rryles

This means a Linux based PC controlling them, with custom software (I'm a software developer by trade). I'd like there to be the possibility of controlling the lights manually though if the PC dies.

Have a look at...

http://www.wordpress-1219309-4387497.cloudwaysapps.com/New-Products/New-HomeSeer-HomeTroller-Mini-Linux-Based-Home-Automation-Controller.html

http://www.wordpress-1219309-4387497.cloudwaysapps.com/New-Products/DomotiGa-New-Open-Source-Linux-Home-Automation-Software.html

http://misterhouse.sourceforge.net/

As the whole house is being renovated I can run as many cables as I want so wireless is not a requirement. In fact I could "home run" all of the cabling and have a central dimmer rack next to the PC. Alternatively I can loop the lighting through the wall switches, including the neutral. Which do you think I should go for?[

Have a read through the Wiring Guide - http://www.wordpress-1219309-4387497...ing-Guide.html

Of course I'd like the system to be cheap. Who doesn't? I don't see why it should have to be expensive. I don't need it to be wireless or to run over power lines. I can do a lot of DIY as I am competent with electronics and software. However my time is limited, and I do need to think of the day when we come to sell, which could be a problem with a non-standard design. I'm not keen on the latency/reliability of X10. I've looked at HomeEasy which is good for the price, but still worry slightly about reliability (what if multiple transmitters send at the same time). I would have thought that wired solutions should be cheaper, but CBus doesn't seem cheap.

You're right about X10, there's no way I'd consider it these days. Compare costs per circuit on C-Bus and you'll see it's not a huge leap for a vastly superior system (the nice switches are expensive though I grant you).

M.

[toscal]

If I was doing it all again, I would go for Idratek. What I have found from running MS windows based systems, as long as its only running one or 2 things they tend to be a lot more stable, and rebooting once a week also helps with clearing out caches and temp files etc.
I use x10 at home and its pretty reliable, but I do have X10 test equipment. And have the whole house filtered and surge protected.

[jpdw]

IdraTek is interesting, and I think I once met the guy behind it! However, it is windows based and a closed protocol, which rules it out for me.

.... What I have found from running MS windows based systems, as long as its only running one or 2 things they tend to be a lot more stable, and rebooting once a week also helps with clearing out caches and temp files etc.

I have a small Idratek install currently only running my zoned heating. The need to run a server (and Windows as that) was one of my initial misgivings. Both as I didn't want to run a power hungry PC and as I'm a long term Linux user. The server -- running XP, Idratek Coretex & VirtualBox -- has only needed a couple of reboots in about 2 years. The VirtualBox runs a VM'd FreeBSD that runs some of the things I'd otherwise run on a separate Linux box (fileserve, DHCP, DNS etc). All for about 20W consumption.
As for it being a closed protocol, that too 'bothered' me a little but I'm dabbling with adding xAP which Cortex can bridge to.